Caprica's season finale was tonight, and Stargate: Universe returns next week. I'm afraid my reaction to both was "So what?" Austin, weren't you the one who said that all SF on TV ultimately disappoints? I'm thinking you're right about that.

Yes, he's right, IMO. But BSG gave us a grand ride for most of its time on the air, until they wrote themselves into a corner and gave us that lame ending instead of a real resolution. The middle seasons of both Farscape and SG-1 were good, until Ben Browder got out of control in the former and RDA left the latter. Coincidentally, the second episodes of both those shows were so bad I stopped watching for a while (and had to play catch-up later!). But in the end, there was no real closure for any of those three.

Yep, that's exactly what I meant. I'm reaching the "So what?" stage myself. And "We are of peace" is coming back, or has come back, or something. But that show won't disappoint, because I'm expecting nothing from it. Nada.

Do you know what's wrong with so much science fiction? It's technophobic.

Last week's Stargate: Universe was a kind of final straw for me. The "device" or "stones" or whatever they are...they failed in a time of need. Where would sf be without the failure of technology to perform as expected? There'd be a lot less of it being written, for one thing. Roddenberry's standard response to script problems was "Put the Enterprise in danger." Sentient machines that turn against their inventors and take over the world has become a standard nightmare (Terminator, BSG). Harlan Ellison won awards for "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" -- but it's just a computer menace story. Rob Sawyer's current book (WWW: Wake) has an implanted chip meant to cure blindness; it fails to provide real sight but allows the patient to "see" the Internet. (Not quite as silly as it sounds.) My nominee for the all-time worst ever TV movie is The Forbin Project. The Big Bad Machine is out to getcha, oh yeah.

Actually, I don't think it's a real phobia shared by writers and/or producers. I think it's more likely laziness; Dystopia is much easier to write than Utopia. But the result is a body of technophobic stories that are bound to influence the way people think simply because of their sheer numbers. Enough, already!

That's one of the reasons I stopped watching ST:TNG. I would never under any circumstances have set foot aboard that Enterprise. Every little speck of dust in the universe that crossed its path was able to seize control of the ship. SG-1 had a couple of episodes where the stargate malfunctioned, but that's an acceptable proportion to the total number of episodes, considering that the show ran for ten years. The Forbin Project sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't quite place it...

Don't try to remember it, Chris. Why inflict pain on yourself? It's an unbelievably stupid movie. It was made before the invention of the PC when very few people knew anything about computers (including the filmmakers).

Remember the Liberator on B7? Some fans called it a Mary Jane because it was so perfect, because no FTL ship could be that spacious or that free from mechanical breakdown. (Until it was eaten by a fungus, of course!) I hope we haven't reached a point where viewers expect the technology to fail.

B7 = Blake's 7, a British science fiction TV series that aired about -- ye gods -- 40 years ago. Can that be right?

FTL = Faster Than Lightspeed, possible only in fiction.

Mary Jane = I think this is supposed to be Mary Sue. (Austin?) I'll just assume it is. A Mary Sue is a character in fan fiction who generally is an idealized version of the fan herself. The fiction is based on a favorite TV series; it's a way the fan can insert herself into the action and intermingle with her favorite characters. Frequently the hero falls madly in love with her. I've never heard the Liberator called a Mary Sue, but I can see how the label would fit.